Cecil B. Demented (2000) |
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Cecil B. Demented (2000) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Comedy |
Theatrical Trailer Interviews-Cast & Crew Trailer-Spirited Away; 24 Hour Party People; The Cat's Meow Trailer-The Kid Stays In The Picture; Shadow Of The Vampire |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 2000 | ||
| Running Time | 84:07 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | No/No | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 1,2,3,4,5,6 | Directed By | John Waters |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Madman Entertainment |
Starring |
Melanie Griffith Stephen Dorff Alicia Witt Adrien Grenier Larry Gillard, Jr. Mink Stole Rikki Lake Patricia Hearst Kevin Nealon |
| Case | Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip | ||
| RPI | $28.95 | Music |
Zoe Poledouris Basil Poledouris |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None | English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) | |
| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.78:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
 |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles | None | Smoking | Yes, including dope and crack cocaine. |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
From writer-director John Waters, who brought you Pink Flamingos, the movie about an obese transvestite’s struggle to be the most disgusting person alive, comes an intentionally bad film about unintentionally bad films – Cecil B. Demented.
In his quest to subvert the denigration of Hollywood cinema into family movies and predictable thrillers, Cecil B. Demented (Stephen Dorff from Blade) kidnaps Hollywood A-list actress Honey Whitlock (Melanie Griffith) from the premiere of her latest film. Holding her hostage, he sets out to make the ultimate suburban terrorist cinematic masterpiece with her as the lead.
This is quite amusing if you’re in the right frame of mind. Certainly some things don’t work very well (or at all), but once you get into the intentional B-grade nature of the film it is quite darkly funny. The vitriolic attacks on mainstream media, the self-imposed sexual frustration and drug addiction in order to create truly great cinema, the various in-jokes with reference to cult filmmakers – it all starts to grow on you after a while. Beneath it all, there are also some interesting subtextual references to censorship and commercialisation which are very biting.
I was, however, expecting the violence to be a little more over-the-top, particularly as I was often reminded of the early works of mad cinema genius Peter Jackson while watching this – those splatter-fest classics Meet The Feebles, Bad Taste and the ultimate zombie movie Brain Dead. Sadly, I was disappointed, as Cecil B. Demented never quite crossed the red-line into hardcore cult status, and remained fairly tame overall. The scene in the porno theatre is great, though.
When all is said and done, this is definitely worth a viewing if – like me – you like a bit of cult cinema every now and then, and have a very dark sense of humour. Unfortunately, it never quite goes all the way into psychosis territory, earning it a classic status, but at times it teeters on the brink.
Presented in 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, this is close to the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1.
The quality of the picture is fairly mediocre, with quite a lot of grain. Still, it is fairly sharp and shadow detail is not too bad, which is important given the finale takes place at night. Colour is acceptable, but not particularly vibrant.
MPEG artefacts are kept to a minimum, although there is some low-level noise present throughout. Dirt pops up fairly frequently, which is a side effect of the low budget, but there is nothing overly distracting.
There are no subtitles – not even for the Hearing Impaired.
This is a single layered disc.
| Sharpness |  |
| Shadow Detail | |
| Colour | |
| Grain/Pixelization |  |
| Film-To-Video Artefacts | |
| Film Artefacts | |
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There is one soundtrack available – an English 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo – and boy, what a disappointment.
First the good stuff: dialogue can be understood throughout. That’s where it ends.
From midway through Chapter 4 (about 17:03), the audio falls out of sync with the video and remains that way until the end of the film. This fault ranges from being only marginally noticeable early on, to being painfully obvious and quite distracting. How on earth this happened, I have no idea, but it is incredibly obvious and is a fault with the mastering of the DVD – in the trailer for this film, there are many sequences from after the Chapter 4 mark where the dialogue is in perfect sync. I can only conclude that something went wrong somewhere in the mastering process of this DVD.
The sound field is also incredibly thin, the music lacking the ambience of many other 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo tracks I have reviewed – the tracks present on Nine Queens and Walker being two recent and obvious examples. This is a shame, because the score is quite funky. While there are directional cues, the whole thing has a tinny quality. I am not sure whether this was intentional to highlight the B-Grade nature of the film, but it just sounds bad.
There is no subwoofer use.
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| Audio Sync |  |
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| Surround Channel Use |  |
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| Overall | |
All menus are presented in 1.33:1, non-16x9 enhanced. They are static and silent.
Presented in 1.85:1, non-16x9 enhanced, 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo. The audio is in sync in this trailer, which leads me to believe the transfer of the main feature is defective.
Presented in 1.33:1, non-16x9 enhanced, with 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo, this is a series of interviews with Melanie Griffith, Stephen Dorff, Rikki Lake and writer-director John Waters. The picture is pretty bad, done on video in some instances, and digital video in other instances.
Presented in 1.85:1, non-16x9 enhanced, 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo.
Presented in 1.33:1, non-16x9 enhanced, 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo. This film looks like a laugh riot if you are into the British music scene.
Presented in 1.85:1, non-16x9 enhanced, 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo.
Presented in 1.66:1, non-16x9 enhanced, 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo.
Presented in 1.33:1,non-16x9 enhanced, 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The R1 release has:
- English Dolby Digital 5.1 Soundtrack
- Writer-Director’s Commentary
- Featurette “Canned Ham: Cecil B. Demented Behind the Scenes”
Given the R1 release has the original audio, and it’s likely to be in sync, plus the bonus features, R1 wins without a fight. It’s also pretty cheap at Amazon.com so if you really are a fan, I would get it from there.
Cecil B. Demented is a blatant cult B-grade movie taking the p*** out of Hollywood. It never crosses the line into hardcore cult movie, but it’s quite an amusing way to spend 90 minutes.
The video is okay, but hardly pristine.
The sound is extremely problematic in the area of audio sync.
The extras are largely promotional material.
| Video | |
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| Extras |  |
| Plot | |
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Panasonic DVD-RV31A-S, using S-Video output |
| Display | Beko 28" (16x9). This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. |
| Amplification | Marantz SR7000 |
| Speakers | Energy - Front, Rear, Centre & Subwoofer |